40年后，對(duì)美國(guó)遣返的兒子說(shuō)聲對(duì)不起

YEONGJU, South Korea — Kwon Pil-ju is trying desperately to teach herself English before she is reunited in the coming weeks with a son she sent away almost 40 years ago.

韓國(guó)榮州——權(quán)碧主(Kwon Pil-ju，音)在拼命地自學(xué)英語(yǔ)，因?yàn)閹字芎?，她要與近40年前送走的兒子團(tuán)聚。

“I have so much to tell him, especially how sorry I am,” she said, sitting in her bedroom, which doubles as her kitchen, in her one-floor rural home in Yeongju. “But I am at a loss, because I don’t know English and he can’t speak Korean.”

“我有很多話要對(duì)他說(shuō)，尤其是我多么對(duì)不起他，”她坐在榮州一所一層農(nóng)舍的臥室兼廚房里說(shuō)。“但我不知道該怎么說(shuō)，因?yàn)槲也欢⒄Z(yǔ)，他又不會(huì)說(shuō)韓語(yǔ)。”

Her son is Adam Crapser, 41, a Korean adoptee who is awaiting deportation from an immigration detention center in Washington State because he lacks American citizenship, even though he has lived in the United States since he was 3 years old. Last month, an immigration court denied his final request to stay in the United States.

她的兒子是41歲的亞當(dāng)·克拉普塞爾(Adam Crapser)。他是一名被收養(yǎng)的韓國(guó)人，現(xiàn)在正在華盛頓州一家移民拘留中心等待被驅(qū)逐出境。盡管他從3歲起就生活在美國(guó)，他卻沒(méi)有美國(guó)公民身份。上月，一個(gè)移民法庭拒絕了他留在美國(guó)的最后一次申請(qǐng)。

Until Mr. Crapser’s fate was reported in a documentary broadcast by South Korea’s MBC-TV last year, Ms. Kwon did not even know that the son she gave up in 1978 had been in the United States.

在去年韓國(guó)MBC-TV電視臺(tái)的一部紀(jì)錄片報(bào)道克拉普塞爾的命運(yùn)之前，權(quán)女士甚至不知道自己1978年放棄的兒子在美國(guó)。

As it turned out, the boy she called Shin Song-hyuk was one of 200,000 South Korean children sent abroad for adoption since the end of the Korean War, most of them to the United States.

事實(shí)上，被她稱為申頌赫(Shin Song-hyuk，音)的男孩是朝鮮戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)結(jié)束后被送出國(guó)收養(yǎng)的20萬(wàn)韓國(guó)兒童之一，其中大多數(shù)被送往美國(guó)。

South Koreans have lamented their country’s international reputation as a leading baby exporter. But in a society that held deep prejudices against single mothers and children born outside marriage, and that shunned domestic adoptions, sending children abroad was often the best option for poor South Korean women. Adoption agencies solicited their babies, promising better lives abroad.

韓國(guó)人一直哀嘆于自己國(guó)家作為主要嬰兒輸出國(guó)的國(guó)際聲譽(yù)。但是，韓國(guó)社會(huì)對(duì)單親媽媽和私生子存在深刻偏見(jiàn)，而且排斥國(guó)內(nèi)收養(yǎng)，所以對(duì)貧窮的韓國(guó)女性來(lái)說(shuō)，把孩子送往國(guó)外收養(yǎng)往往是最佳選擇。收養(yǎng)機(jī)構(gòu)招攬她們的嬰兒，并向她們承諾，孩子會(huì)在國(guó)外過(guò)上更好的生活。

In recent years, however, some have returned to South Korea as adults, reporting adoptions gone wrong.

但是，近些年，有些人在成年后返回韓國(guó)，稱收養(yǎng)出了問(wèn)題。

Some of the most wrenching stories have come from those who were deported back to South Korea. Like Mr. Crapser, they were abused or abandoned by their adoptive parents. Only after they ran afoul of the law did they learn that they were not American citizens, their parents having never filed citizenship paperwork for them.

其中最悲慘的故事來(lái)自那些被遣返回韓國(guó)的人。和克拉普塞爾一樣，他們受到養(yǎng)父母的虐待或被拋棄。他們只有在違法后才知道自己不是美國(guó)公民，養(yǎng)父母從未給他們辦理入籍手續(xù)。

Officials at South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare say they know of at least five adoptees who were deported back from the United States. But advocates for Korean adoptees say there may be more than twice as many, some undocumented.

韓國(guó)保健福祉部(Ministry of Health and Welfare )的官員稱，他們知道至少有五名被收養(yǎng)者被從美國(guó)遣返回來(lái)。但是，韓國(guó)收養(yǎng)兒權(quán)益的倡導(dǎo)者稱，實(shí)際人數(shù)可能是這個(gè)數(shù)字的兩倍多，有些人沒(méi)被記錄在案。

Tossed back to a country they had left decades ago, these adoptees were once again foreigners struggling to adapt to an unfamiliar culture and language.

被趕回?cái)?shù)十年前離開(kāi)的國(guó)家后，這些被收養(yǎng)者再次成為努力適應(yīng)不熟悉的文化和語(yǔ)言的外國(guó)人。

The television documentary that reported Mr. Crapser’s plight also included the story of a 44-year-old adoptee named Monte Haines, or Han Ho-kyu, who served in the United States military in the 1990s. He was deported to South Korea in 2009 after he was caught driving a truck carrying illegal drugs. Some adoptees had severe mental illnesses and became homeless when they returned to a country that was never truly their home.

那部記錄克拉普塞爾遭遇的電視紀(jì)錄片還提到一個(gè)名為蒙特·海恩斯(Monte Haines)或韓浩奎(Han Ho-kyu，音)的44歲被收養(yǎng)者的故事。他曾在20世紀(jì)90年代在美國(guó)軍中服役。2009年，他開(kāi)著一輛裝有非法毒品的卡車(chē)被抓后，被遣返回韓國(guó)。有些被收養(yǎng)者患有嚴(yán)重的精神疾病，回到這個(gè)從未真正是其家鄉(xiāng)的國(guó)家之后，變得無(wú)家可歸。

At least Mr. Crapser has a birth mother waiting for him.

至少，克拉普塞爾還有個(gè)生母在等他。

Ms. Kwon, 61, spends hours filling ruled pages with the letters of the English alphabet, copied down in a shaky hand. It’s slow going for a woman with no formal education, but she wants to be able to explain herself to her son.

61歲的權(quán)女士花費(fèi)數(shù)小時(shí)整理那些橫格紙，上面有她用顫抖的手抄寫(xiě)的英文字母。對(duì)一個(gè)從未受過(guò)正規(guī)教育的女性來(lái)說(shuō)，進(jìn)展非常緩慢，但她希望自己能夠向兒子表達(dá)自己的想法。

“I have never imagined that he was having this hard life of his,” she said, wiping away tears. “I should have kept him even if we starved together. What I did was an unforgivable sin.”

“我從沒(méi)想到，他的生活這么艱辛，”她擦去眼淚說(shuō)，“我應(yīng)該把他留在身邊，哪怕我們一起挨餓。我做的孽不可饒恕。”

When she was a child, Ms. Kwon received acupuncture therapy that went horribly wrong, leaving her left leg shriveled and paralyzed. Her alcoholic father sent her to live with a man with cerebral palsy. A year and a half later, she met a carpenter with whom she had three children: a daughter and two sons, including a boy born in 1975, Shin Song-hyuk, who would become Adam Crapser.

權(quán)女士小時(shí)候接受針灸治療時(shí)出現(xiàn)嚴(yán)重問(wèn)題，左腿萎縮、癱瘓。酒鬼父親把她送去跟一個(gè)腦癱男人生活。一年半后，她遇見(jiàn)一個(gè)木匠，跟他生了三個(gè)孩子：一個(gè)女兒和兩個(gè)兒子，包括1975年出生的申頌赫，也就是后來(lái)的亞當(dāng)·克拉普塞爾。

The carpenter often kicked and punched Ms. Kwon, she said, and he eventually abandoned her and her young children.

她說(shuō)，那個(gè)木匠經(jīng)常對(duì)她拳打腳踢，最后拋棄了她和年幼的孩子們。

Ms. Kwon could not pay her rent. Her father was too poor to take her and her children in.

當(dāng)時(shí)她付不起房租。她的父親又太窮，不肯收留她和孩子們。

In 1978, she gave her youngest son to a childless family. She took her daughter and Song-hyuk, then 3, to a local orphanage that arranged adoptions. She saw her children playing with toys and other children, and left without saying goodbye for fear they would follow her.

1978年，她把最小的兒子送給一個(gè)沒(méi)有孩子的家庭。她把女兒和當(dāng)時(shí)3歲的頌赫送到當(dāng)?shù)匾患野才攀震B(yǎng)的孤兒院。她看見(jiàn)孩子們玩玩具，和其他孩子一起玩。因?yàn)閾?dān)心他們會(huì)跟著她，她沒(méi)跟孩子們告別就離開(kāi)了。

Last year, Ms. Kwon got a call from a relative who remembered Song-hyuk and had watched the television documentary. In it, Mr. Crapser called out for his birth mother.

去年，她接到一個(gè)親戚的電話，那個(gè)親戚還記得頌赫，而且看到了那部電視紀(jì)錄片。克拉普塞爾在片中向生母求助。

“Remember, Eomma, I am always your son, your flesh and blood,” he said, using the Korean word for mom.

“記住，Eomma，我永遠(yuǎn)是你的兒子，是你的血肉，”他說(shuō)，用韓語(yǔ)發(fā)音來(lái)稱呼媽媽。

Ms. Kwon contacted the documentary’s producer, Kim Bo-seul, who arranged a video chat between the mother and son, and a DNA test to confirm their relationship.

權(quán)女士聯(lián)系了那部紀(jì)錄片的制作人金寶雪(Kim Bo-seul，音)，后者安排這對(duì)母子進(jìn)行視頻通話，并進(jìn)行DNA檢測(cè)，以確定他們的母子關(guān)系。

Mr. Crapser, who has a wife, a daughter and two stepdaughters, communicated with his biological mother through an interpreter. He expects to be deported in the coming weeks and will reunite with his mother, who plans to decorate a small room in her house for her son.

克拉普塞爾有個(gè)妻子、一個(gè)女兒和兩名繼女，他通過(guò)翻譯與生母交談。幾周后，他會(huì)被遣返回國(guó)，與母親團(tuán)聚，后者計(jì)劃在自己的房子里給兒子布置一小間居室。

Ms. Kwon said she had trouble sleeping, thinking of what she would tell her son and what she should feed him when he arrives.

權(quán)女士說(shuō)自己睡不好，一直在想要跟兒子說(shuō)什么，他來(lái)了以后給他做什么吃的。

“I am still poor, but I owe him a lot of love,” she said.

“我依然很窮，但我欠他很多愛(ài)，”她說(shuō)。